Writing in ... Libya

       At ahramonline Mary Mourad reports on Challenges for Libyan authors: Desertification of the cultural space, as Libya was the guest of honour at the recent Cairo International Book Fair and so the local situation was much discussed.
       Among the interesting observations:

Mohamed Al-Tarhuny, writer and critic, described how authors had to keep inventing means to overcome the challenge of the regime that worked hard to destroy every creative pen in the country.

Mentioning big names of contemporary Libyan literature, he considers them examples of how the authors were able to overcome the suppression of Gaddafi's tyranny: Ibrahim Al-Koni, for example, spoke of a world of the Tuareg that was fading from existence, while Mohamed Al-Asfar escaped into fantasy.

       More provocatively:

"True Libyan creativity isn't the monologue in books, but rather the online wide-open space where someone's idea receives input, criticism and updates," said Mohamed Al-Malky, head of the Benghazi office for discourse analysis, who chaired one of the sessions.

       As someone who's a big fan of the 'monologue in books', I beg to differ -- but I'm so impressed that there's a 'Benghazi office for discourse analysis' that I won't complain too much.